Thursday, March 28, 2019

Social ontology of government

I am currently writing a book on the topic of the "social ontology of government". My goal is to provide a short treatment of the social mechanisms and entities that constitute the workings of government. The book will ask some important basic questions: what kind of thing is "government"? (I suggest it is an agglomeration of organizations, social networks, and rules and practices, with no overriding unity.) What does government do? (I simplify and suggest that governments create the conditions of social order and formulate policies and rules aimed at bringing about various social priorities that have been selected through the governmental process.) How does government work -- what do we know about the social and institutional processes that constitute its metabolism? (How do government entities make decisions, gather needed information, and enforce the policies they construct?)

In my treatment of the topic of the workings of government I treat the idea of "dysfunction" with the same seriousness as I do topics concerning the effective and functional aspects of governmental action. Examples of dysfunctions include principal-agent problems, conflict of interest, loose coupling of agencies, corruption, bribery, and the corrosive influence of powerful outsiders. It is interesting to me that this topic -- ontology of government -- has unexpectedly crossed over with another of my interests, the organizational causes of largescale accidents.

In light of these interests, I find the front page of the New York Times on March 28, 2019 to be a truly fascinating amalgam of the social ontology of government, with a heavy dose of dysfunction. Every story on the front page highlights one feature or another of the workings and failures of government. Let's briefly name these features. (The item numbers flow roughly from upper right to lower left.)

Item 1 is the latest installment of the Boeing 737 MAX story. Failures of regulation and a growing regime of "collaborative regulation" in which the FAA delegates much of the work of certification of aircraft safety to the manufacturer appear at this early stage to be a part of the explanation of this systems failure. This was the topic of a recent post (link).

Items 2 and 3 feature the processes and consequences of failed government -- the social crisis in Venezuela created in part by the breakdown of legitimate government, and the fundamental and continuing inability of the British government and its prime minister to arrive at a rational and acceptable policy on an issue of the greatest importance for the country. Given that decision-making and effective administration of law are fundamental functions of government, these two examples are key contributions to the ontology of government. The Brexit story also highlights the dysfunctions that flow from the shameful self-dealing of politicians and leaders who privilege their own political interests over the public good. Boris Johnson, this one's for you!

Item 4 turns us to the dynamics of presidential political competition. This item falls on the favorable side of the ledger, illustrating the important role that a strong independent press has in helping to inform the public about the past performance and behavior of candidates for high office. It is an important example of depth journalism and provides the public with accurate, nuanced information about an appealing candidate with a policy history as mayor that many may find unpalatable. The story also highlights the role that non-governmental organizations have in politics and government action, in this instance the ACLU.

Item 5 brings us inside the White House and gives the reader a look at the dynamics and mechanisms through which a small circle of presidential advisors are able to determine a particular approach to a policy issue that they favor. It displays the vulnerability the office of president shows to the privileged insiders' advice concerning policies they personally favor. Whether it is Mick Mulvaney, acting chief of staff to the current president, or Robert McNamara's advice to JFK and LBJ leading to escalation in Vietnam, the process permits ideologically committed insiders to wield extraordinary policy power.

Item 6 turns to the legislative process, this time in the New Jersey legislature, on the topic of the legalization of marijuana. This story too falls on the positive side of the "function-dysfunction" spectrum, in that it describes a fairly rational and publicly visible process of fact-gathering and policy assessment by a number of New Jersey legislators, leading to the withdrawal of the legislation.

Item 7 turns to the mechanisms of private influence on government, in a particularly unsavory but revealing way. The story reveals details of a high-end dinner "to pa tribute to the guest of honor, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo." The article writes, "Lobbyists told their clients that the event would be a good thing to go to", at a minimum ticket price of $25,000 per couple. This story connects the dots between private interest and efforts to influence governmental policy. In this case the dots are not very far apart.

With a little effort all these items could be mapped onto the diagram of the interconnections within and across government and external social groups provided above.

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About Me

I am a philosopher of social science with a strong interest in Asia. I have written books on social explanation, Marx, late imperial China, the philosophy of history, and the ethics of economic development. Topics having to do with racial justice in the United States have become increasingly important to me in recent years. All these topics involve the complexities of social life and social change. I have come to see that understanding social processes is in many ways more difficult than understanding the natural world. Take the traditional dichotomy between structure and agency as an example. It turns out that social actions and social structures are reciprocal and inseparable. As Marx believed, “people make their own histories, but not in circumstances of their own choosing.” So we cannot draw a sharp separation between social structure and social agency. I think philosophers need to interact seriously and extensively with working social researchers and theorists if they are to be able to help achieve a better understanding the social world.

Open source philosophy

Since 2007 this site addresses a series of topics in the philosophy of social science. What is involved in "understanding society"? The blog is an experiment in thinking, one idea at a time. Look at it as "open-source philosophy" -- a web-based, dynamic monograph on the philosophy of social science and some foundational issues about the nature of the social world.

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Digital editions of Varieties of Social Explanation

Digital editions of Varieties of Social Explanation are now available on Kindle and iBooks for iPad. This edition contains the original text of the 1991 edition along with an extensive new introduction, "Philosophy and Social Knowledge."